Stuck Has a New Meaning

In my life I’ve had several moments where I felt ‘stuck’ or ‘trapped.’  I wish that people truly understood the depth and complexity of those words to me.  My life has had its challenges, but what upsets me the most is that I truly am privileged.

I have major depressive disorder, but I am privileged.  I have a father that was a cheater in all three of his marriages and emotionally abusive towards me, but he is a Professor and exposed me to the world of learning and higher education.  I also have a father that through his cheating contracted HIV, but thankfully my mother did not suffer the consequences.   I lived well below the poverty line until the age of 12, but by the age of 14 I was living in the wealthiest community in my town.  I wasn’t the smartest kid in school, but now I am working on my Ph.D.  I have been hurt by friends, been betrayed by friends, I’ve even had to bury quite a few friends, but I also have an amazing support system today.  I miss my best friend from high school that is in rehab, but I connect with her feelings of despair, she makes me feel normal.  I watched kids threaten the lives of other kids, but then had the privilege mentoring them and seeing some of them go to college.

In every situation in my life that has been challenging, with every hurtful situation in my life, I have an equally and beautifully blessed afterwards.  Knowing and seeing the reality is no longer comforting to me.  Today I am ‘stuck’ I am stuck in a place where I see and acknowledge my privilege but I see and acknowledge the emptiness in my heart.

You see, I know that nothing material is going to fulfill me.   I’m in a PhD program, and I was always in the popular clique in high school and college, no amount of success, prestige or material gain has brought me happiness.  I know that it comes from something beyond the superficial and that is why I am stuck.  I have overcome so many obstacles in my life and have achieved so much, to still remain empty.  So why go on?  I suffer, then I’m in pain, I succeed, then I’m still in pain.

I’ve gained so much thus far without results….why continue? Then my fears overcome me..not so much dying but dying a failure in the eyes of my friends and family.  To take my own life would be the last memory…and my ‘perfectionist people pleasing self’ is more afraid of that then actually killing myself.  Is that crazy?  It feel undoubtably crazy to me.  So stuck to me has a new meaning.  Its understanding that my MDD is heightened and driven by my lack of contentment and pursuit of perfection, but wanting to leave the battle that it has me fighting every day.  I’m stuck between my desire to be loved and admired and my desire to feel free from this way of thinking and being. I’m tired of feeling the world differently then those around me, I want freedom from the bondage and captivity of my MDD.